Nashville nurse Tura Lee always went where the music took her. She loved all music, but musical theater topped her list. She felt stagnant and complacent in her life, until a winning lottery ticket changed everything. Learn how the stars aligned to...
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Down a long cement hallway, painted mental institutional yellow, the sounds from the revelries of the club muted to near silence. The only sounds were the whooshing of my dress and the clicking of my high heels. "There's the keypad," I heard him whisper, as he steadied his grip on my waist. "Are you sure this is safe?" I turned to him and took a healthy swig of champagne. "Safe is boring. Let's be reckless." "I hope we're away from prying eyes here." He said, spinning me towards him and caressing my cheek. "Because I want to do things with you right now for which I might just get locked out of heaven." I entered the code and heard a beep, then the click of the door being unlocked. There was a spiral staircase right on the other side of the entrance, so we followed it up to what appeared to be an annex to the main building, a totally different and hidden floor only accessible from this staircase. As we neared the top, we began to see glimpses of the hidden garden.There were sounds of a fountain and soothing New Orleans jazz underlaid with rainforest notice. The smell of gardenia and rose wafted through the air, overpowering the crude stench that the city sometimes held. I looked back at Lin, who was removing his mask as sure as he looked around to see that no one lingered. "Almost like Isabela's room, huh?" I asked.
"If abuela was running a brothel, maybe."
With that, he kissed the back of my hand, an antiquated move that nearly brought me to my knees. He led me through rows of and rows of heavenly flora. Bougainvillea, jasmine, lantana, hydrangea, roses of every imaginable color sprung up around us, almost as if my sorcery. Like some mystical force had waved their hand and created this place for no one else but us. Trellises of ivy and wisteria lined the end of the path. Then, seemingly out of no where, we happened upon a most unexpected sight. A bed. A canopy bed sat before us, adorned with white gauze that whipped in the gentle October breeze. "Surely this is meant for us, don't you think?'' "I don't see anyone else out here so I guess we can assume so."
He faced me with a sly smile and took both my hands in his as his lips touched mine. He held them there, making circles with his arms as if to beckon me out to a dance floor to perform a sinful merengue with him. Instead, he leapt backwards onto the mattress and patted it, urging me downward with him. We both laid on our backs and stared upwards. It was a cloudless night in the Crescent City. The stars were dotting the sky like a Seurat that hung above us in the gallery of the sky. He pulled his shirt from his trousers and threw it off carelessly.
"Huh..." He said, as if something had caught his attention.
"What is it?"
"Couple of things." He rolled over on his side, and I did the same. "First of all, these flowers right here on either side of this bed....they're Flor de Maga. It's the national flower of Puerto Rico." "Thespesia grandiflora..." I said wistfully, only knowing this because of my time spent doing clinics in PR a few years prior. "You've heard of it?" "Of course. Now could you please just say the name of the flower for me "Florrrrr. Florr de Maga.."
